Best Laid Plans examines unrealized projects preserved in the Archives of American Art. While centered on unfinished artworks, the exhibition also brings together proposals for publications, exhibitions, and other creative initiatives that, for various reasons, were never realized. Rarely exhibited or published, these materials often survive only in archival form. By foregrounding them, the exhibition reveals an essential dimension of the Archives’ holdings and introduces little-known—or entirely unknown—projects by influential artists and thinkers.